Melissa Leo Lands A Mother Of A Role

Melissa Leo has 150 reasons to be in Los Angeles this Sunday night. The most important single reason is, of course, her own—she very much wants to attend the Golden Globes awards ceremony. But talking from New Orleans last Friday, where she is filming the second season of the HBO series “Treme,” she explained that she will have a lot of help in getting to there.

“All 150 people who are involved in this production have worked to adjust the shooting schedule so I can fly west this weekend,” said Ms. Leo, the daughter of Arnold Leo of East Hampton, the longtime secretary of the East Hampton Baymen’s Association. “I was nominated once before but didn’t get to the ceremony, so this time I want to be there and enjoy it whatever happens.”

What could well happen is Ms. Leo wins a Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in “The Fighter,” the movie that also stars Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams. Directed by David O. Russell and released last month, the film made dozens of top-10 lists of 2010 motion pictures.

In what might seem like quite a stretch, the youthful Ms. Leo plays the mother of Mr. Wahlberg’s and Mr. Bale’s characters, who are half-brothers. Ms. Leo, who is only 50, admitted that she had some initial reservations about playing the mother role.

“I was very interested in this role and working with these actors, but I didn’t think I was the girl they were looking for,” she recalled. “I had to kind of be talked into it. But after five minutes of my first reading for David, I felt it. And then when we added the work of the makeup people and the interaction with Mark and Christian as my sons, it ended up being a role I had never done before and to do it well was especially satisfying.”

“The Fighter” is based on the true story of “Irish” Mickey Ward (Wahlberg), a welterweight who has taken a lot of punishment in the ring and has gone into construction back home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is given the opportunity to fight for the championship, and he enlists Dicky Eklund (Bale) to be his trainer. Dicky, an ex-con and recovering drug addict who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard, has to compete with Ms. Leo’s character (who is also the mother of seven daughters) and Mickey’s girlfriend (Adams) for not only Mickey’s attention but his loyalty and faith.

The critical success of “The Fighter” and the recognition of her portrayal of the rough-edged Alice Eklund has been pretty much unanimous. Rick Bentley of The Charlotte Observer wrote that Alice is “a passive-aggressive minion of hell who makes every past bad film mom look like June Cleaver. Leo’s Oscar-worthy portrayal of Alice as a master manipulator goes beyond acting to total transformation.”

The role is just the latest indication that Ms. Leo’s career is on fire. She appreciates the irony of striving less yet gaining more.

“Ten years ago when I turned 40 I realized that I had achieved in my life what I had always wished for as a kid, to be an actor and a mom,” she said. “So what has happened the last 10 years has been a series of bonuses that came to me. I count my blessings every day.”

Look up the definition of “working actor” and there should be a photograph of Ms. Leo. For more than 25 years, she has worked steadily in feature films and television.

Her first recognition was being nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1985 for her role on the soap opera “All My Children.” She took on parts in television movies, independent films and B-features—ranging from “Deadtime Stories” in 1986 to “Carolina Skeletons” in 1991 to “Last Summer In the Hamptons” in 1994. A big break was landing the role of Detective Sergeant Kay Howard on the TV series “Homicide: Life on the Street” and playing it for five seasons.

Beginning in 2003, the film roles got better and better for the persevering Ms. Leo.

The movie “21 Grams” which included Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro and Danny Huston in the cast, earned Ms. Leo a Los Angeles Film Critics Association nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Another strong notch in her acting belt was starring with Tommy Lee Jones, Levon Helm and Barry Pepper in the 2005 film “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.” Most recently, two years ago Ms. Leo cracked the Oscar Best Actress Award category for the lead role in “Frozen River,” playing the hard-bitten mother of two in upstate New York who turns to smuggling to keep her family afloat.

She did not win, but satisfying were appraisals like this one from Roger Ebert: “What a complete performance, evoking a woman’s life in a time of economic hardship. I was struck by how intensely determined she was to make the payments, support her two children, carry on after her abandonment by a gambling husband and still maintain rules and goals around the house. This was a heroic woman.”

Scripts are now showing up regularly at her door, but most have been put on hold because of Ms. Leo’s commitment to “Treme,” now in its second season. Several of the writers and producers responsible for the HBO hit “The Sopranos” collaborated on this series, which takes place in New Orleans in the months and years following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

“I had every hope when I first spoke to the creators of the show that it would grow over time on HBO,” Ms. Leo said. “Considering the quality series I expected it to be, I was ready to make a long-term commitment, so I’m delighted to be in New Orleans shooting the second season.”

In the first season, Ms. Leo’s character was an overworked lawyer with a young daughter, married to a college professor played by John Goodman, who battled fits of rage and depression as the full damage to his beloved city became more apparent. Overcome by his emotions, Mr. Goodman’s character committed suicide.

Ms. Leo said that she saw the necessity of her screen husband’s fate in the overall plot, but will miss working with him.

“Unless they bring John back as a ghost, he’s no longer with the series,” she said. “That’s a loss for viewers of the show, but for me personally, I had the pleasure of working with John again in a film directed by Kevin Smith [“Red State”] that will have its premiere at Sundance this month.”

When not locked into her “Treme” character, Ms. Leo can review the especially good memories she has of “The Fighter.”

“The juicier the mix, the finer the wine,” she said about the film and its cast and creators. “It was an incredible collaboration. Like lightning in a bottle. It was a very special experience for me.”

As will being in Los Angeles this Sunday, with another chance to win a high-profile award.